EPSRC IRC 'SPHERE' - a Sensor Platform for HEalthcare in a Residential Environment

Abstract

The UK's healthcare system faces unprecedented challenges. We are the most obese nation in Europe and our ageing population is especially at risk from isolation, depression, strokes and fractures caused by falls in the home. UK health expenditure is already very substantial and it is difficult to imagine the NHS budget rising to meet the future needs of the UK's population. NHS staff are under particular pressure to reduce hospital bed-days by achieving earlier discharge after surgery. However this inevitably increases the risk that patients face post operative complications on returning home. Hospital readmission rates have in fact grown 20% since 1998.

Many look to technology to mitigate these problems - in 2011 the Health Minister asserted that 80% of face-to-face interactions with the NHS are unnecessary.

SPHERE envisages sensors, for example:1) That employ video and motion analytics to predict falls and detect strokes so that help may be summoned.2) That uses video sensing to analyse eating behaviour, including whether people are taking their prescribed medication.3) That uses video to detect periods of depression or anxiety and intervene using a computer-based therapy.

The SPHERE IRC will take a interdisciplinary approach to developing these sensor technologies, in order that:

1) They are acceptable in people's homes (this will be achieved by forming User Groups to assist in the technology design process, as well as experts in Ethics and User-Involvement who will explore issues of privacy and digital inclusion).

2) They solve real healthcare problems in a cost-effective way (this will be achieved by working with leading clinicians in Heart Surgery, Orthopaedics, Stroke and Parkinson's Disease, and recognised authorities on Depression and Obesity).

3) The IRC generates knowledge that will change clinical practice (this will be achieved by focusing on real-world technologies that can be shown working in a large number of local homes during the life of the project).

The IRC "SPHERE" proposal has been developed from day one with clinicians, social workers and clinical scientists from internationally-recognised institutes including the Bristol Heart Institute, Southampton's Rehabilitation and Health Technologies Group, the NIHR Biomedical Research Unit in Nutrition, Diet and Lifestyle and the Orthopaedic Surgery Group at Southmead hospital in Bristol. This proposal further includes a local authority that is a UK leader in the field of "Smart Cities" (Bristol City Council), a local charity with an impressive track record of community-based technology pilots (Knowle West Media Centre) and a unique longitudinal study (the world-renowned Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a.k.a. "The Children of the Nineties").

SPHERE draws upon expertise from the UK's leading groups in Communications, Machine Vision, Cybernetics, Data Mining and Energy Harvesting, and from two corporations with world-class reputations for research and development (IBM, Toshiba).

Planned Impact

The SPHERE IRC aims to have a profound impact on the health and well-being of people with a wide range of different health challenges and the UK's growing elderly population. The beneficiaries will also include families, carers, health and social services professionals involved in all stages of care. SPHERE targets significant health challenges; obesity, depression, stroke, falls, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diseases.

SPHERE's approach includes a substantial amount of technology demonstration. This is specifically designed to ensure that benefits to key stakeholders are brought about - these beneficiaries include clinicians, the NHS and UK industry, which will be able to build not only on the SPHERE technology platform, but will be able to access the body of knowledge and understanding built up through 5 years work with communities and user groups. It is impossible to overstate the importance of this; home healthcare technology is inherently highly invasive and technologies that are not designed from the outset with user participation from a wide range of demographics are doomed to fail. Furthemore, industrial pull-through will only be achievable if technology meets the needs of doctors, nurses, social workers, care-givers and the NHS generally - SPHERE is ideally-situated to take those needs on board.

Specific industrial beneficiaries include the project partners IBM and Toshiba who by participating have strongly indicated their interest in the outcomes, but also companies including Phillips, Texas instruments, Intel and Microsoft all of whom are already marketing, or are known to be researching, ICT heathcare solutions, services and/or telehealth/home sensor devices. There are also a number of companies in the UK and elsewhere developing ICT products for assisted living e.g. "Sensormind" and "Just Checking".

SPHERE already includes engagement with local government through the participation of Bristol City Council. Bristol has an excellent - and growing - reputation for Smart City research and has a "Futures Group" that has a remit to evaluate the opportunities for ICT in the delivery of the city's services (see the letter of support). Bristol City Council is participating in several EU funded technology projects for this reason, and with the City's growing statutory responsibility for the health of its citizens, Bristol City Council (like other local authorities) is keenly interested in the role of technology in healthcare. The City Council works closely with national government and is an ideal point of contact.

SPHERE has a stated objective to engage with policy-makers and this will be delivered though the eminent and influential co-investigators that are such a valued part of the IRC. Many of these co-investigators already have considerable track-record in interfacing with policy-makers in the NHS and in Government.

SPHERE's overall aim was to research, develop, create, install and operate a multi-sensor system for health behaviours at home. This objective was met entirely and SPHERE systems captured health-relayed data on more than 50 local homes for periods of months in each home (up to, in some cases, two years). As well as developing the technology to acquire the data, the project developed the necessary analytics approaches and all the ethical processes.

Many of the SPHERE participants were healthy and these will form a dataset of healthy controls for future studies - however SPHERE also recruited a group of NHS patients in Bristol.

Exploitation Route

Several projects are now using - or looking to use - SPHERE technology to characterise the progression of disease conditions. These projects will lead to new understandings of important illnesses such as dementia and Parkinsons Disease.

Data from the SPHERE House referenced in the paper "TSCH Networks for Health IoT: Design, Evaluation and Trials In The Wild". This subset is published as open data.

Type Of Material

Database/Collection of data

Year Produced

2018

Provided To Others?

Yes

Description

3D House visualisation

Organisation

Bath Spa University

Department

Bath School of Art and Design

Country

United Kingdom

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

SPHERE will provide the datasets to develop the 3D visualisation of the house.

Collaborator Contribution

The development of this software will help draw together the experiments being conducted at this current stage in SPHERE. . The software will be an accessible way to understand how the sensors impact on the house and enable people to better understand the project. This could be particularly useful as a recruiting tool for when the trial is expanded to 100 homes.

Impact

An initial survey of the house has been carried out, with measurements.
A virtual 3D modelled house has been created to be displayed on a PC or Mac desktop. Each room will be visible with translucent walls. It will be possible to show/hide rooms/floors.
Clear 3D modelled iconography are used to explain relevant appliances/fittings, e.g. hot/cold taps, kettle.
The house can be rotated to be viewed from 360 degrees. It will be possible to view a room in close up. The 3D model will reside in a full screen interface, with appropriate GUI design.

Start Year

2015

Description

A two electrode electrocardiography front end for enabling physiological signal measurements

Organisation

University of Manchester

Country

United Kingdom

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

SPHERE has been developing a common sensing platform based upon the Texas Instrument CC26XX series of chips which integrate analogue-to-digital converters with a low power microcontroller and a Bluetooth low energy transmitter. We will work in collaboration with Manchester in producing sensors that can measure physiological input.

Collaborator Contribution

Alex Casson's lab specialises in ultra low power sensing and signal processing, and is exceptionally well placed for adding further physiological modalities within this limited power budget. We have extensive experience in making low power electronics and in hands on data collection meaning that we have the skills, practical experience, and insights into the signal to be collected in order to make optimisations to the signal collection process. We commonly work with electroencephalography (EEG) acquisition (~10-200 µV, 0-100 Hz), (funded by EPSRC DTPs), and heart sensors using electrocardiography (ECG) and photoplesmography (PPG) powered by energy harvesters (funded by EPSRC EP/M009262/1).

Impact

The teams have meet to discuss timelines.

Start Year

2016

Description

Collaboration with Altium Corporation

Organisation

Altium

Country

Australia

Sector

Private

PI Contribution

The SPHERE team met with Altium in several occasions to explain the aims of the project and the advances in wireless communications and how this research will be used in healthcare.

Collaborator Contribution

Altium donated 15 licences of their EDA software packages together with priority technical support. Altium technologies will be used in the design of the SPHERE wearable.

Impact

The research is still under development but research outputs will be shared with partners.

Start Year

2014

Description

Collaboration with Broadcom Corporation

Organisation

Broadcom Corporation

Country

United States

Sector

Private

PI Contribution

The team met with representatives from Broadcom in several occasions.

Collaborator Contribution

Broadcom donated evaluation boards for the wireless technology.

Impact

The collaboration is mainly on development.

Start Year

2014

Description

Collaboration with MoveLab, Newcastle University

Organisation

Newcastle University

Department

MoveLab

Country

United Kingdom

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

The Director and a group of researchers from Bristol visited the MoveLab group on 16/06/14. They discussed with Professor Michael Trenell the possible area of collaborations, specifically using wearable technology to study physical activity. There are plans to continue with this collaboration and there are plans for a study to commence in April 2015.

Collaborator Contribution

Members of MoveLab came to Bristol to present a seminar later in the year. There are plans to continue with this partnership.

Impact

Presentations in Bristol and Newcastle
Project draft under revision

Start Year

2014

Description

Data storage and sharing

Organisation

University of Bristol

Country

United Kingdom

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

Research governance and ethics plans used in the project will be available for this study.

Collaborator Contribution

The Centre for Ethics at the University of Bristol will provide their expertise in ethical guidelines when using sensitive data. The researcher will identify and describe key ethical, social and legal literature relating to data storage and sharing.

Impact

The researcher has conducted a small-scale but methodologically robust interview study with up to 30 SPHERE participants and researchers. Interviews have collected about use of research data collected through SPHERE technology, with analysis of interview material leading to a report for SPHERE and externally-facing publication.

Start Year

2015

Description

Designing Interfaces for Sensible Sensing

Organisation

Newcastle University

Department

School of Computing Science

Country

United Kingdom

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

This collaboration with the Open Lab in Newcastle will take a user-centred design approach to co-produce with stakeholders, including end-users, the design of graphical interfaces for everyday management of the SPHERE sensor platform. The main objectives are:
• To create empirical data on participant sense-making in the SPHERE sensing ecology
• To generate procedures for data governance on sensed data
• To establish usable interfaces for data sharing and retention
• To co-produce requirements for end-user visualisation and data management interfaces
• To implement these requirements in a functional sensible sensing interface that is integrated with the SPHERE system.
SPHERE is providing the equipment and also the focus groups for the study.

Collaborator Contribution

Open Lab in Newcastle will provide their expertise in user-centre design and human computer interaction to develop interfaces for visualising data to support end-users' sense-making of both sensed data and the function of sensors. Also when collecting large-scale in-home sensing data, there is a significant need for user-facing data governance tools that allow for the obfuscation or removal of personally sensitive data, and the annotation of ambiguous data. Newcastle in collaboration with Bristol are working in producing a user-friendly app to provide study participants with an interface that can be trusted.

Impact

Newcastle University has provided a project plan and timeline and has obtained Ethics application. Newcastle will be running workshops with focus groups, and has engaged with researchers to co-produce these workshops.

Start Year

2015

Description

Distributed rule-based activity recognition in the SPHERE house

Organisation

University of Huddersfield

Department

School of Computing and Engineering

Country

United Kingdom

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

SPHERE is providing datasets of activity of the daily living obtained in the SPHERE house.

Collaborator Contribution

Huddersfield in collaboration with Bristol is producing a rule-based recognition system for hierarchically-organised activities that returns only logically consistent scenarios.

Impact

The team is building a software system funded on available of-the-shelf rule-based system e.g. JESS and populate rules for recognising activities in the SPHERE house (in-line with SPHERE house ontology of ADL). This is an incremental process which starts by working with environmental data and eventually will include all sensors' data. In this process, we will create an offline data processing system which will mature into an online system. Initially the system will be centralised but will be evolving towards a decentralised rule-based system.

As part of the SPHERE project we aimed to recognise the activities of different participants living in the same house. SPHERE provides the location as well as sensors and equipment to carry our this studies.

Collaborator Contribution

This project aims to provide activity detection using the UCL passive wireless system. This system uses the rapidly increasing wireless network
transmitter base as the transmission source. A prototype system has been built and promising results obtained for activity detection and person tracking in rooms and through walls. This technology is very suitable for integration with other SPHERE sensors and testing in the Demo house environment. The main objective of this preliminary work is to examine the feasibility of deploying this system in a real environment alongside other SPHERE sensors.

Impact

Both laboratory tests and field tests have been carried out. Currently, data is being obtained from experiments in the SPHERE house.

Start Year

2015

Description

Long-term person re-identification

Organisation

Queen Mary University of London

Country

United Kingdom

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

The vision group in the SPHERE project had developed an integrated camera system using depth cameras, also a tracking method has been developed in this study and it will be used in this project as well as the datasets gathered by this team.

Collaborator Contribution

This project implements and integrates state-of-the-art person re-id feature representations and matching functions. Furthermore, it will advance the state-of-the-art by tackling the appearance-change problem in long-term re-id. The possible solutions include the profiling of the typical clothing patterns of the target, and fusing clothing appearance cues with other soft-biometrics based cues computed by the vision system developed by SPHERE including gaits, facial attributes and behavioural patterns.

Impact

The team from Queen Mary have visited SPHERE and datasets from the SPHERE house are currently being analysed.

Start Year

2016

Description

MoU signed with Nanyang Technological University Research Centre of Excellence in Active Living for the Elderly (LILY)

Organisation

Nanyang Technological University

Country

Singapore

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

The Director met with the Directors of the LILY Centre in August 2014. Associate Professor Miao Chunyan, and Professor Cyril Leung attended several meetings with Professor Craddock, they interchange information about the areas of research which are quite complementary. During the visit of the President of Singapore, the Directors of the two centres signed a Memoradum of Understanding between the Centres.

Collaborator Contribution

A number of researchers from the LILY Centre visited Bristol. They also demonstrated their research to the public attending the launch of the Dress-Sense competition. It was an opportunity to meet with other researchers and to discuss possible areas for collaboration.

Impact

This collaboration has just started. Our Centres are in the process of looking at projects where a collaboration can be established. The IRC envisage that there will be an interchange of researchers between centres.

The SPHERE project is interested in measuring changes in behaviour in the home. We are using a number of sensors but some of them may be seen intrusive. We are collaborating with Southampton to develop new methods to look at changes in emotion.

Collaborator Contribution

Using EEG signals to recognise human emotion will provide a complementary approach to this research. It is complementary to emotion recognition from video and collaboration is expected with this workpackage. Collaboration between the University of Southampton and the University of Bristol will be conducted during the lifetime of the project.

Impact

Ethics application has been approved and the testing has started.

Start Year

2015

Description

Recognising the daily activities of people in home settings

Organisation

University of Rostock

Country

Germany

Sector

Academic/University

PI Contribution

SPHERE will provide datasets obtained in the SPHERE house to test this methods.

Collaborator Contribution

Rostock University will use their expertise in using Computational State Space Models (CSSM). This approach describes the human behaviour in the form of rules. These rules are used to generate probabilistic models with which the system can infer the user actions and goals. This has been tested in the laboratory setting but SPHERE will provide real data scenarios to test this method.

Impact

Kristina Yordanova has visited the SPHERE project and has been looking at datasets available. A master students is collecting data and will analyse with the guidance of Kristina when flying to Rostock.

Start Year

2016

Description

Relevance of SPHERE technologies to health services in the region

Organisation

National Institute for Health Research

Department

NIHR CLAHRC West

Country

United Kingdom

Sector

Public

PI Contribution

SPHERE is developing a state of the art platform that can be used to prevent and support a number of chronic conditions. However, in order to make sure that the technologies are adopted by health services providers we need to understand the needs of users and clinicians.

Collaborator Contribution

The NIHR CLAHRC West works with partner organisations, including the NHS, local authorities and universities, to conduct applied health research and implement research evidence, to improve health and healthcare across the West.
This organisation is providing 0.5 FTE to support this study.

Impact

The aim of the project is to evaluate current care management practices in three settings (hospital, general practice and patients' homes) for COPD patients with co-existing conditions, and identify how home telehealth systems might better support clinicians and patients' needs with the potential to improve patients' outcomes.
NHS Ethics applications have been obtained and interviews are taking place.

Start Year

2014

Description

'Data Scientist - heal thyself' Designability, University of Bath

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

Regional

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

The Director presented this public lecture discussing how internet of Things technologies have emerged in recent years as enabling technologies for life-long healthcare. Increasingly these technologies are seen as moving health from the hospital to the home and at the same time shifting the responsibility for "health" from the Clinician to Computer Scientists and Engineers.

The content of the talk stimulated discussion about the role of new technologies in healthcare but also how personalised data will be protected and used. New links were establish with researchers from the University of Bath.

Around 40 people attended a talk about SPHERE by Alison Burrows. The talk introduced the audience to the project and got them thinking about different elements of the project.

The event was an opportunity not just for Alison to share information about the project, but a number of researchers also attended and talked to other attendees about the project.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Bristol Bright Night Research Fair

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

SPHERE researchers and Bristol University Students produced two interactive exhibits. The first was a Lego house that was fitted with sensors and a 'mindstorm' lego brick. The second was created by the vision team and was an interactive exhibit that quantified the quality of the participant's balance. In addition there were leaflets and information about opportunities to get involved in research. Three researchers, and staff from a partner organisation were involved in developing and delivering the event.

Over 70 people took part in the Balance Activity. 120 leaflets offering information about how to get further involved in the project were handed out. 11 visitors to the event signed up to get further involved in research and testing.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Bristol Dementia Health Integration Team (HIT) Event

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

The opportunity to talk to and engage a range of partners in the SPHERE project. 250 people attended the event. 11 people signed up to get further involved in the SPHERE project, in both a personal and professional capacity. Out of the event SPHERE has been invited to attend Bristol Stroke Café to talk with people affected by stroke and the possible links with SPHERE.

Eleven people signed up to get further involved in the SPHERE project, in both a personal and professional (health professionals also attended this event) capacity. Out of the event SPHERE has been invited to attend Bristol Stroke Café to talk with people affected by stroke and the possible links with SPHERE.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Broadcom visit to SPHERE

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Regional

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

Broadcom, an American semiconductor company in the wireless and broadband communication business, visited SPHERE in several occasions and resulted in new collaboration with the project.

Broadcom have donated evaluation boards for the wireless technology

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Celebrating Age Festival

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

SPHERE demonstrated in the form of a LEGO model with a 'mindstorm' brick how sensors can be used in the home to monitor medical conditions. This demonstration was used to engage attendees in the SPHERE project and encouraged them to give an initial reaction to the project. In addition there were leaflets and information about opportunities to get involved in research. One member of the SPHERE project team, and staff from a partner organisation were involved in developing and delivering the event.

Over 50 people engaged with the demonstrations. 80 leaflets offering information about how to get further involved in the project were handed out. 9 visitors to the event signed up to get further involved in research and testing. Two members of the SPHERE team were directly involved in the event and received direct feedback from the public. As well as signing up members of the public who had an interest in volunteering to be research participants, SPHERE was invited to speak at other events including University of the Third Age.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Effect of alcohol on cognition app for Greeman festival

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

We developed an Android app that illustrates the effect of alcohol on visual perception. The app was one of a number of health behaviour based public engagement activities at the IEU's Bar to the Future stall at the Green Man festival in 2015.

We organised an introductory session to invite people from Bristol to explore the technologies that we have developed and learn about our project in preparation for the recruitment of the 100 home study in Bristol.

Professor Janet Lord isthe Director of the MRC-ARUK Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research, she was interested in learning more about the SPHERE technologies and how this can be used in supporting people living with arthritis.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2015

Description

John Gallacher, Director of the Dementia Platform visited the SPHERE house

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

The Dementia Platform UK (DPUK) is a national initiative that is developing an integrated research environment enabling rapid data analyses and a new generation of highly targeted, highly informative discovery studies and early phase trials; positioning the UK as world leading location for dementia research. DPUK is interested in using sensor solutions for prevention and support of patients with dementia and carers.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2015

Description

Keynote speech at BioSensors 2016

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Professional Practitioners

Results and Impact

keynote speech at Biosensors 2016, Gothenburg, Sweden

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2016

Description

Keynote speech at the 2015 IEEE 2nd World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT)

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Professional Practitioners

Results and Impact

Professor Craddock was invited to give the keynote speech to the IEEE 2nd World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT) in Milan. The title of the talk was 'Near you, on you and inside you - IoT for future health'.

SPHERE hosted the Healthy and Living Well workshop with attendees from Heidelberg and Kyoto

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2015

Description

MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit panel discussion

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

This public lecture and panel discussion focussed on recent large-scale initiatives to sequence the DNA of 100,000 individuals. Following the initiation of two major initiatives; 'Genomics England' and the 'Personal Genome Project' both of which propose to sequence 100,000 genomes, driven by different motives, we will be holding a public lecture with representatives from both, followed by a panel discussion to highlight benefits, risks and issues related to these new initiatives. The event will include presentations from Professor Sir John Burn (Genomics England), Professor Stephan Beck (Personal Genomes Project) and Professor Sir Rory Collins (UK Biobank) and will be followed by a panel discussion. We will be addressing the following key questions: what does this mean for the public of the UK? Who should have access to this genetic information? What are the benefits - why is genetic information so useful? What are the risks?

This was an opportunity to discuss with the public their concerns about the protection of genetic data and personal data in general. Also it was a great opportunity to meet other researchers working in this area and contacts were establish.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Marc Yvon, Head of IBM's Centric Human Solution Group visited the SPHERE house

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Professional Practitioners

Results and Impact

Marc Yvon the Head of IBM's Human Centric Solution group visited the SPHERE house. He pointed out that the project is very ambitious and was impressed but the outputs achieved in the last two years.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2015

Description

Meeting with Altium Corporation

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Regional

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

After several meetings with representatives of Altium Corporation they have agreed to donate 15 licences of their EDA software.

The Altium technology will be used to design the wearable technology for SPHERE.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Meeting with Business Director of Brunelcare

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Third sector organisations

Results and Impact

Discussion with David Rice regarding the inclusion of Brunelcare facilities in the recruitment for the SPHERE project.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2015,2016

Description

Meeting with Cascoda

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Regional

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

After several meeting with Cascoda, an UK based company that specialising in high sensitive Zigbee silicon design, has led to plans for future collaboration.

The meetings have led to joint PhD proposal.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Meeting with MRC IEU, Biomedical Research Unit in Nutrition, Health and Excercise, Experimental Psychology researchers to describe opportunities to collaborate with the SPHERE IRC

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

The Director gave a presentation to inform colleagues in the MRC IEU of possible areas of collaboration testing research hypothesis regarding behaviour in the home environment and the use of the SPHERE house as an experimental facility.

Interest was gather and research ideas were exchange for future collaborative projects

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Meeting with Professor Rory Collins, UK Biobank

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

The Director met with Professor Collins as to discuss the research taken place within the UK Biobank project and to identify areas of mutual interest.

Professor Collins shared important information that will be very important during the deployment phase of the SPHERE project.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Meeting with SMEs interested in Digital Technologies for Health

Form Of Engagement Activity

A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Regional

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

A key focus of this event was to bring together key people within the South West Digital Health Cluster I currently lead and people who share a common vision around enabling citizen centric healthcare through technology and to understand how the value of smart green health can be realized through the fusion of technology and knowledge.

There was a discussion about how SMEs working in the area can collaborate with the SPHERE project. There was a suggestion that the SPHERE house could be used as a experimental facility for health care products developed in the region. This event was also supported by the Academic Health Science Network (AHSN). Further meetings have taken place with organisations interested in working with the SPHERE IRC.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Presentation at Global Forum 2016 Eindhoven

Form Of Engagement Activity

A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Professional Practitioners

Results and Impact

Presentation at Global Forum 2016 Eindhoven

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2016

Description

Presentation at Health European Brokearage Event

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

SPHERE attended this international brokearage event to raise the profile of the project as to be involved in Horizon 2020 proposals.

This event was attended by organisation around Europe. The presentation created great interest and SPHERE has received a high number of request of collaboration.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Presentation at ICT proposers day

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

This presentation was used to raised the profile of SPHERE IRC in Europe and to identify possible partnerships.

Presentation at an Affordable Assisted Living Technologies for the Indian setting workshop in Bangalore

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

SPHERE was invited to participate in a workshop organised by the Indo-British Geriatric Association, the theme of the workshop was using affordable technologies in the Indian context. Key to the development of all these new technologies and devices is the participation of the user in the generation of ideas and the design of the devices. At the same time local and national governments should be involved in developing pathways so the users (patients, carers, health professionals) can access new technologies.

India has a high number of trained professionals that would benefit from interchanges with researchers in the UK. Co-funded PhD studentships will be an excellent way to promote collaboration between these two nations. SPHERE will be very interested in hosting these exchanges. The University of Bristol offers a wide range of expertise in areas that would benefit the development of projects to promote healthy ageing.

A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

SPHERE featured in a online newspaper article in the Observer/Guardian site, this features appeared after a presentation from Mo Haghighi, RA in the project at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol. It raised the profile of the project internationally.

The article created great interest and the IRC received a high number of request for more information.

A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

SPHERE was featured in an article describing the various projects taking place in Bristol in the area of networking and using sensors to support better lifestyle. The article has raised the profile of the project.

The article was published both online and on paper in one of the leading newspapers of the country. This has increased the interest in the project and will help during the recruitment period.

The SPHERE project was the subject of 5 month residency at the regional science centre "We The Curious" in central Bristol.

The exhibit comprised a "Smart House" where visitors could undertake activities and create data. They explored training a machine learning "classifier" to detect particular activities in the house and they were able to consent to contribute their own data to the research. Participants were also able to share their views about data sharing, trust and research governance.

More than 4700 people visited the exhibit and used the hands on demonstrations there.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2018

Description

SPHERE Citizen Science

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

Through 2018 and 2019 SPHERE created a "Citizen Science Group", members of the public (research participants) who were given an unusual degree of control over the research process.

They created a number of research hypotheses and then undertook their own peer review of each others proposals, they conducted a survey of the state of the art including interviewing expert scientists and they created an experimental protocol aligned to their hypothesis. They were guided to write a research ethics application and at the time of the writing they are using SPHERE technology to undertake measurements in their own homes that will give them evidence to validate or invalidate their hypothesis.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2018

Description

SPHERE Public Advisory Group

Form Of Engagement Activity

A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

The Public Advisory to the SPHERE project has fallen into two distinct groups, a group made up of professionals with a background in social care and other professions that involve working with people in their homes, and a group of attending in a personal capacity.

The first group is made up of a range of professionals from backgrounds such as physiotherapy, housing, working with older people, working with people with dementia and other such professions.

The second group has 7 members made up of:• A health trainer• A retired community engagement librarian• A member of Bristol's older People's forum• A Student• A retired GP's receptionist• A member of the local community in Knowle West,• A former Civil servantWe have had three meetings and a fourth and fifth planned for November/December. After the initial meetings and introductions, the format of the meetings is to meet with a member(s) of the SPHERE team and for them to introduce their particular area of research and explain their approach. The Advisory groups will then discuss this and offer their opinions.The discussions that come out of these meetings are then disseminated throughout the whole SPHERE team at catch up meetings and as a newsletter (http://www.irc-sphere.ac.uk/public-advisory-group).

Questions raised by the group include:• Human interaction - this is vital to well being. Will sensors prevent human interaction, or can they be used to encourage it. Work with charities including RSVP, Age Uk, BOPF, Bristol Ageing Better and Health Trainers.• Permission - How do get permission from people to suggest services or to work with them? Are there models that already exist? There are organisations who already work in this area who might be able to help e.g. health trainers.• Can SPHERE be linked to models of self-reporting - for example those used by mental health organisations - so people's perception of their wellbeing can be calibrated with the information from the sensors.• Intellectual wellbeing - This was a controversial area - are there blurred lines between suggestions to living in a more healthy way and recording or commenting on people's intellectual tastes - Is it better for you to read than watch TV? Is this a morally dubious path/slippery slope? People already have books on prescription.• Recruitment - much harder to recruit healthy people - if people can see a direct benefit, they are more likely to get involved. • Recruitment - the group suggested a number of organisations in the city who it would be beneficial to contact in terms of recruitment.• Multiple occupancy in homes. Many people might have the system, but a partner would object. How to you work with families who have different opinions?• Legal issues - how do you judge when or when not to pass on information that could lead to harmful situations. Are there legal precedents?

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

School visit (regional women in STEM day)

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Regional

Primary Audience

Schools

Results and Impact

The work of the SPHERE team was presented as part of the "Women in STEM" event for schools across the region. This was held at a local girls school.

4 workshops were held in which the attendees learnt about digital devices such as wearables. They did some physical activity in the classroom and looked at how this was reflected in the data. They they brainstormed together on the subject of how new technology could enable better self management of longer term disease conditions.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2018

Description

Stand at the Festival of Nature

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

Regional

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

Over 200 people took part in the SPHERE activities (counted by the number of recordings of the balance activity). Over 200 leaflets giving more detail about the project and how to get involved were handed out. SPHERE was invited to talk at two additional events. 20 people showed and interest and were given more detailed information about taking part in a study.

Feedback from members of the public that approach the SPHERE exhibit was shared with the team. 10 members of the SPHERE team were involved in the event and all received direct feedback from the event that provided information that will be useful in taking the project forward.

Informed 35 older people about the SPHERE project. Gained immediate feedback from the group. Circulated leaflets about the project to further inform the group and give them the opportunity to get further involved.

We aim to recruit participants in the future.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Talk at Eagle House

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

Yes

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Public/other audiences

Results and Impact

Informed 40 local people about the SPHERE project. Gained immediate feedback from the group. Ran simple activity using posters to get feedback on group's immediate reaction. Circulated leaflets about the project to further inform the group and give them the opportunity to get further involved.

One member of the forum joined the SPHERE advisory group. The Group's feedback was shared with the SPHERE team.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Texas Instruments visited the SPHERE project

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Industry/Business

Results and Impact

Texas Instruments were interested in learning more about the SPHERE project and attended a meeting with Professor Craddock

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2016

Description

Visit from Dr. Declan Mulkeen, Chief Science Officer, MRC

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Professional Practitioners

Results and Impact

Visit from Dr. Declan Mulkeen, Chief Science Officer, MRC

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2016

Description

Visit of Dr Shiro Saito, Toshiba Research Development Centre, Japan

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

Dr Saito received information about SPHERE IRC and the links to other activities within Bristol University. He represents the Research Development Team in Toshiba Japan.

The information will be used to maintain the interest of this company who has a research lab in Bristol which collaborates very closely with the University.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Visit of Janssen, Jack Turner

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Industry/Business

Results and Impact

Jack Turner from Janssen Healthcare Innovation visited the SPHERE project. Jansses in working in this area of digital health and they wanted to share some of their experiences as they're running trials using telecare.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2016

Description

Visit of the Chief Medical Officer for England to the SPHERE House

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Policymakers/politicians

Results and Impact

Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England was invited to have a look at the SPHERE house, a highly instrumented space designed to test the sensor platform designed by SPHERE to monitor the wellbeing of people at home. Demos using ambient sensors and off-the-shelf cameras showed the possibilities of using technologies to analyse data related to changes in behaviour and how this may be linked to health. Dame Sally Davies was accompanied by Dr Tony Soteriou, Research Infrastructure and Growth Senior Manager. SPHERE plans to use the house not only to test the accuracy of the sensors but also to record the experiences of people living in a monitored environment.

Professor Davies gave a positive feedback after the meeting with the Director of the IRC. She believes that digital technology has great potential to support the work of health professionals when caring for patients, as well as being used as tools for self management of disease.

The SPHERE IRC was asked to host the President of Singapore during his Estate Visit. The President visited the University on 23 October 2014. He agreed to inaugurate the Dress-Sense competition. He also talked to Singaporean students living in Bristol.

This event was part of a high profile international visit and helped to highlight the international importance of the research carry out by the EPSRC IRC. The event was attended by Government officials including the Minister of Universities, Sciences and Cities, Greg Clark.

Visit to Alison Noble, Director of Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Oxford University

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

The Director visited Prof Noble to discuss areas of mutual interest and to raise the profile of the IRC.

Some areas of research were recognised as of mutual interest and there are plans for future collaborative work.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Visit to BUPA, Alan Payne and Alex Matei

Form Of Engagement Activity

A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Industry/Business

Results and Impact

Professor Craddock visited BUPA to talk about the advances in the project.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2015

Description

Visit to Gerhard Troester, ETH Zurich

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

International

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

The Director and a group of researchers visited the lab of Prof Troester to discuss areas of collaboration.

Possible projects were identified and these will be developed in the coming years.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Visit to Lionel Tarassenko, Oxford University

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)

Results and Impact

The Director visited Professor Tarassenko to discuss area of common interest and raised the profile of the IRC.

There were some areas that were identified as possible areas for collaboration. Prof Tarassenko will be visiting the IRC in 2015.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Visit to Lucy Yardley, University of Southampton

Form Of Engagement Activity

A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Regional

Primary Audience

Professional Practitioners

Results and Impact

Professor Craddock visited Lucy Yardley to start working on a collaborative bid to EPSRC.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2015

Description

Visit to Public Health England - Cabinet office meeting

Form Of Engagement Activity

A talk or presentation

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

National

Primary Audience

Policymakers/politicians

Results and Impact

The Director and Co-Director visited the offices of Public Health England to inform government representatives of the potential of digital technologies in healthcare.

This visit raised the profile of the project and the potential of the research.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Description

Visits and workshops in local schools (Red Maid, Bristol Free School) as part of a competition to develop new wearable technologies for health.

Form Of Engagement Activity

Participation in an activity, workshop or similar

Part Of Official Scheme?

No

Geographic Reach

Local

Primary Audience

Schools

Results and Impact

Prof Craddock and staff from Toshiba and researchers from SPHERE visited local schools to invite them to participate in a competition to produce new wearable technologies for health.

Both schools signed up for this competition and SPHERE developed a short workshop to teach children how to use raspberry pi and basic programming. This skills were used during the competition when students of both schools joined teams competing for a price.The materials developed for the students will be used by the Faculty outreach programme.

Year(s) Of Engagement Activity

2014

Data

The Data on this website provides information about publications, people, organisations and outcomes relating to research projects

APIs

A set of REST API's enable programmatic access to the data. Refer to the application programming interfaces
GtR and GtR-2